Tales of the Fire Nation The Voyage Home I
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: Many secrets remain after the war. Even Azula has no full knowledge of many of them including mysterious offshore bases used for secret Fire Nation military projects.


**Travels in the Fire Nation**

**The Return to the Earth Kingdom – Part 1**

Karo lay on his stomach on the wooden deck of the Water Tribe ship. The ship had not passed through the Gates of Azulon but he had decided to grow seriously seasick and lay back on the deck watching the white puffy clouds. Karo did not appreciate the thousands of years of cultural tradition that went into the delicate wooden hull and finely shaped blue sails. He hated and feared the sea and traveling upon it.

Azula sat next to him. Mitsumi squealed as the ship moved and then lay down next to Karo.

"You puked on a dolphin." Azula felt motivated to inform Karo.

"As a gay man I should enjoy spending time with lots of buff Water Tribe sailors." Karo gasped as he turned his head to speak to Azula.

"As a gay man you can do much better." Azula patted Karo's back. "You caught my brother's attention."

"Zuko?" Karo asked.

"No! My other gay brother." Azula sneered.

"I have a feeling of dread." Karo answered back.

"He does like you." Azula said pleasantly. "He has his gay side – which Mai tries to suppress."

"I have no money so you must have decided to kill me for the sport." Karo said dryly.

"I am having my period." Azula added for no other reason than to increase Karo's discomfort.

"You blamed me for that when we cast off this morning." Karo sat up hoping the deck had quit heaving and finding out that it hadn't. Mitsumi fell blissfully asleep on his lap and Karo envied his pet lemur deeply. "You seem to feel the need to keep me up to date on what ever it is your reproductive system does. Then you blame me for it."

"You have nice and cramp free reproductive biology." Azula put her arm around Karo's shoulder.

"I still have that sense of dread." Karo put his arm around Azula's waist.

"I became a good deal less regular since I began hanging out with you." Azula continued. "My mom has her period every twenty eight days but not me. I can go for six months without a visit from mother nature and then I feel like my body has all of the sudden decided to cramp up and make me feel like crud. This time I had to wait only three months."

"You know I can live without knowing this." Karo knew the usual routine involved Azula griping about cramps and then punching him in the head.

"I have had to endure your rants about kidney stones." Azula hugged Karo.

"I had one!" Karo complained. "And yes it hurt! Evolution did not design my urinary tract to pass rocks the size of satellites of Jupiter. I had to spend a week in bed!"

"I wish I had been born a man." Azula griped.

"So do I." Karo sighed.

The Water Tribe ship had a dozen crew members, two blue colored sails on a mast and it moved at a pace between stopped and dead slow. Karo felt the deck reproduce every heaving ocean wave and his stomach churned. Volcanic ash from the eruption of Ember Island had coated the deck in light gray dust but the winds had shifted so most of the ash fell to the south. Azula cuddled with her friend Karo as she watched the northern statue of the Gate of Azulon slowly move past.

"Karo?" Azula said quietly from her bunk. Mitsumi liked her bunk and had staked out a prime piece of warm real estate at her feet.

Karo snored lightly. He found vomiting and sea sickness exhausting work.

"Karo!" Azula tossed a pillow down at his bunk.

"Cramps?" Karo asked politely. "You cursed me out then cursed evolution and then the female condition and me once more."

"Your body doesn't bleed for five days." Azula held the blankets over her and growled at Karo.

"I have not held down a single meal today. I hate the ocean, I hate sailing ships and I hate my life." Karo replied equally frankly as he looked out into the dim yellow light given off by a storm lantern that swung from side to side as the boat rocked.

"I saw my mom and Hakoda kissing on the main deck." Azula added. "She plans to marry him."

"I will say something wrong and you will call me an utter bastard." Karo sat up in bed and banged his head on the bottom of Azula's bunk bed. "I like Hakoda. He's a very decent man who raised two decent children. Lady Ursa has lucked out. My mom had a midlife crisis and dated my high school band teacher. I have managed to repress most of those memories."

"Real men don't have beads in their hair." Azula grumbled. "I used to think that being Fire Nation meant something important."

"We never need to ask for a light when we smoke?" Karo yawned.

"The superior element of power." Azula wanted to smack Karo upside the head but didn't want to put out the effort to reach down and hit him in the head. "As a fellow fire bender you must know this."

"When you fell in love with Suki did you feel any less of a fire bender?" Karo said gently. "You love Katara but has that made you less powerful?"

"Both women hurt me." Azula felt the boat rock but she found this comforting. "Suki feared me as her captor and thought I might torture her. She made me feel powerless because I found her so beautiful I could not bring myself to hurt her. When I had to imprison her I cried. Katara never feared me but she never loved me. She defeated me partly because I found her so gorgeous. In the end I am just me."

"Your father committed an awful crime." Karo said sadly. "He left his beautiful daughter an emotional cripple."

"You utter bastard." Azula leaned over the edge of the bunk bed. "You have always got the nicest words."

Karo leaned forward and kissed Azula on the lips.

The Avatar dreamed of meeting dead people like Avatar Roku. Karo had more mundane dreams like the recurring dream of sitting in a small capsule atop a large rocket and finding himself hurtling into a low Earth orbit. He had reached the point where he had pressed the big red button that started the huge rocket engines and they roared to life with a sound that he felt through his slender frame. He woke up to find Azula curled around his small frame and snoring into his ear. She denied snoring but her snoring sometimes reached levels only the best sub woofers could match. It amazed Karo that a petite woman like her could produce so much sound energy.

"I badly need to _pee_." Karo muttered to himself.

Water Tribe ships had none of the amenities Karo had come to expect like flushing toilets. A small room walled off from the bunk area with a curtain contained a rope handled wooden bucket painted in blue with a water tribe decoration intended for use as a toilet. As an aid to comfort, the bucket sat under a wooden bench with a hole cut out of it to serve as a seat. Karo had avoided using this as much as possible since one had to empty the bucket.

Karo gently began freeing himself of Azula's grip.

"Mrrrmmm?" Azula murmured and snorted.

Karo stumbled across the room and into what passed for a lavatory on a Water Tribe ship. The dim lamp's yellow glow did little to aid his vision. Karo had inquired about having flush toilets installed. Hakoda told him politely to empty and wash out the bucket once a day and explained to Karo that the bucket had an important ceremonial function in Water Tribe culture. Karo fought and won out against the urge to roll his eyes – Azula lost that battle.

"To all crew. Please make certain to empty the bucket in the lavatories each day." The only thing Karo found to read consisted of a hastily handwritten note reminding people that the ship did not have modern facilities. Karo finished his business, badly wished for a paper towel dispenser and a sink and worried about some of the nastier kinds of rashes.

He left the phone booth sized primitive bathroom and climbed up into Azula's bunk to escape the snoring. Mitsumi chattered something possibly obscene as Karo woke him up from a pleasant dream about eating lots of fruit.

Karo woke up at about nine in the morning. He fell out of the bunk since the synapses that had remembered he had taken the top bunk didn't notify the part of his groggy brain that told him to stroll out of bed and grab some breakfast.

_Thump!_

Karo made a dull thud on the floor.

Azula had her brain on some kind of early morning auto pilot and she walked out of the laughable lavatory with a toothbrush and stepped on the winded Karo as he lay on the floor.

"How did you end up on the floor?" Azula stepped off Karo.

"Something to do with gravity." Karo stood up and smoothed out his night robe. "I have already started coming unglued."

"Three weeks at sea with you stumbling and vomiting all over the place and a bucket for a toilet." Azula swished her toothbrush in a glass of water she had in her hand. "Did I mention three weeks at sea with my frank and often far too open mother? Did I mention we will spend three weeks at sea with hairy sailors?"

"I feel like the guys smoking next to the oil well when the blow out preventer fails." Karo rooted through his knapsack for his toothbrush and a gadget called a samovar he had brought to make hot tea at his fire bending whim. "I think tonight we'll have dolphin for supper."

"Dolphin?" Azula waved her toothbrush in the air to dry it out. "The other gray meat?"

"Dolphin brains and sweetmeats I think." Karo took out his toothbrush and applied a good deal of Uncle Koh's Baking Soda and Fluoride toothpaste. The large red printing on the cardboard carton promised a _face stealing_ smile.

"I know we ran over a dolphin last night." Azula pulled out a brush with a delicate gold handle and began making up her hair. "So we dine at _Hakoda's We Kill It, We Grill It Roadkill Restaurant_."

"What invertebrate did we eat last night?" Karo asked cautiously.

"Boiled sea cucumber with slime." Azula looked in a small mirror to check her hair. "_You _ate sea cucumber – I ate Fire Flakes."

"Didn't they remove those from the market because they contained asbestos particles?" Karo tried his best to civilize his hair to fit under the red flame decoration.

"Asbestos provides much needed fiber and cancer." Azula began to dismantle the samovar to make the first cup of tea for the day. Azula's tea could rival raw crude oil for its toxicity but it helped treat Karo's seasick stomach and killed weeds. "I found a stash in the Fire Nation palace from the reign of the late Fire Lord Azulon."

The days dragged by. The weather grew colder and the sea stormier. Azula and Karo wanted to pass the time with fire bending practice but on a wooden sailing ship that made for practical difficulties.

Azula had begun to realize that the Water Tribe had not embarked on a long march to civilization as much as taken a detour around some of the more popular bits like electrical power and food additives. The Water Tribe struck Karo as bucolic, pastoral and simple folk. Azula used harsher words one could not say on most basic cable channels.

Karo paced the decks and mainly got in the way by blundering into the rigging and the ropes or walking into the crew as they worked to keep the ship afloat. Karo had checked for life rafts in the event of a maritime accident which given the increasing number and size of the icebergs crossing their path seemed inevitable. Karo couldn't swim, dreaded the water and found no life rafts even after checking three times. Hakoda assured Karo that icebergs could not sink a Water Tribe ship and Karo took this confidence as a bad omen.

Mitsumi chose to remain below decks in the warm belly of the ship. He had explored the ship from bow to stern, ate the abundant supply of bugs that also sought the warmth below decks and had slept a good deal. For a lemur this amounted to the best way to spend time on a sailing ship.

Lady Ursa spent her days talking with her daughter and Karo. She told Azula about her childhood in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. She could not fire bend and decided to study acting. As a military academy, the college handbook had not made much mention of the drama program. In fact the page that listed the rules governing library fines on overdue books took up more space. Ursa spent her nights enjoying the company of her Water Tribe honey.

Hakoda tried to _bond_ with Azula and Karo. He found Azula stuck up and stand offish and that seemed to comprise her good points. Hakoda tried to show Karo how to handle the ship and found the boy and the sea shared a decidedly hostile relationship. After freeing Karo from having tangled himself in the ropes for the third time Hakoda decided to give up teaching seamanship to an economist. Karo seemed a perfectly agreeable young man but Hakoda could see he lacked confidence in himself and had that insufferable faith in progress and technology so common among the Fire Nation.

Hakoda had conversations with Azula but came away from them with the distinct impression that Azula looked down her nose at him. Lady Ursa had a loving nature, full of feminine grace and human empathy and Hakoda found it hard to understand how her daughter could possess none of these traits. Hakoda could not really warm up to the princess and she found him equally baffling. He captained a ship crewed by a dozen men he considered close friends and the work got done. Azula found this incredible since she had a darker view of human nature and viewed most people as controlled by fear – fear of authority, fear of death or fear of the future. He saw a keen mind like Sokka's at work behind those sad amber eyes but not human sympathy.

Two weeks into the voyage and the weather turned viler. Karo and Azula had retreated below decks to avoid the cold wind and snow and keep out of the way of the crew. Mitsumi chirped nervously each time the wooden sailing ship creaked and groaned. The heavy seas tossed the ship around and made reading difficult and keeping upright involved a kind of dance like that of someone playing with a hula hoop.

Azula and Karo lay in their bunks formulating odd ideas on how a possible rocket ship might work to send lemurs or the less dumb great apes into space to test the effects of space on them or the other way around. The wooden ship creaked and groaned as the storm pounded the ship from the air and the water. Karo had wondered if real marine engineers had tested this ship or as with most things Water Tribe, the builders just followed tradition. Karo looked up as the hull made a heart stopping crunch.

"What was that?" Karo asked Azula in a panic.

"Sounds like wood giving way." Azula said less than reassuringly. "Or the giant kracken has begun tearing the ship apart to feast on the crew."

The hatched opened and a damp, cold and somewhat concerned Lady Ursa jumped down into the small room below decks. She closed the hatch swiftly and smiled at Karo and Azula.

"A giant squid had attacked the ship." Lady Ursa sweetly explained. "Hakoda says it happens all the time in these waters but we should remain below decks for our own protection."

"I can fire bend and so can Karo – sort of." Azula sat on the edge of her bunk with the dark blue blankets around her to fend off the cold.

"How giant?" Karo asked cautiously and admitted to himself he might not like the full answer. "How many football pitches long?"

"At least one." Lady Azula gave a far too frank answer.

"Tool up Karo!" Azula leaped off the bunk and pulled Karo off of his. "We got up, got dressed and now we have to save our ship from the ink spewing demon of the depths."

A shudder ran through the ship and then it groaned loudly as if protesting. One of the burly sailors let out a terror filled scream.

"I welcome death." Karo felt Azula yank him up the ladder as she opened the hatchway with a loud thump. Karo had trained as a fire bender at the hands of Azula – an acknowledged master – but as Azula noticed his congenital cowardice never went away.

"We came to help." Azula yelled out to Hakoda who had thrown his third spear at he head of the creature which looked like a fuchsia pink squid with dark crimson tiger stripes. It had a head the size of a small house and dark red angry looking eyeballs the size of dinner tables. Azula held on to Karo's collar as he began to faint.

"Karo!" Azula commanded. "You shoot a fire bolt over his head while I try for the eye."

"How?" Karo jumped sideways as the demonic squid tried to crush him with a tentacle. He jumped back followed by splintering pieces of wood from the deck. Azula had to admit that Karo could have quick and steady reflexes when driven by self preservation. He lay back on the deck and sent out a fire bolt that singed the forehead of the creature as he slid across the icy deck.

This distracted the huge monster long enough to give Azula time to prepare a lightning strike. The monster felt keen irritation at having had its head singed and it embarked on a project to pulp Karo into a nasty stain on the deck. Karo saw a large tentacle fly toward him as he jumped out of the way. His mind began to see the world in a kind of freeze frame motion. He saw Azula jump into the air and jab out with her fingers and lightning flowed out from her fingertips. Like a DVD player on slow motion, Karo saw the creature take the hit and then its head exploded into a mass of pink nasty bits and a lot of green goo. In the next blurry frame a limp tentacle landed next to him on the deck and then in the blurry moments afterwards he felt a tidal surge of nasty cold green goo with pink chunks like a rotten watermelon that had taken a large caliber bullet. It washed over him and into his nose and mouth – strangely enough it tasted like lemon and tuna. Karo got up on his hands and vomited.

"Oh gross." Azula slipped on the deck.

"Okay!" Hakoda commanded the crew. "Gather up all the larger chunks! Tonight we dine like kings!"

The giant squid sank into the cold depths of the ocean leaving behind a dark green stain in the water and several large bits lay scattered on the deck. Karo tried to stand up and look dignified but his Fire Nation robes now had green goo coating them. He fell back and fainted as Azula dragged him and headed toward her part of the ship and decided to help him to his feet.

"We had it under control." Hakoda spoke in a polite but scolding voice. "We have dealt with the giant squid before. It didn't want to eat us – it gets disoriented during storms! We could have driven it off with a few spears."

"I have squid bits up my nose." Karo complained as he tried to remain standing on the rocking and now very slippery deck.

Karo refused to eat giant squid in any form. He planned to survive by eating part of Azula's stash of Fire Flakes and Fire Gummies. Karo considered his life a long endless chain of petty humiliations linked together with brief moments of terror. The Water Tribe crew had cleaned off Karo by having him stand on the open deck in his boxers while they dunked cold sea water on him from buckets they filled over the side of the ship. Karo complained about his insufferable plight as he toweled himself dry and shivered in the small cabin with Azula enjoying a few of her own petty torments.

"I wish I had lost my glasses." Karo rubbed his hair with the towel with great enthusiasm. "I wouldn't have to clearly see everything."

"Are those my boxers?" Azula sat on the bottom bunk and watched Karo fuss over his appearance.

"Does it matter?" Karo brushed his hair and checked the brush for any remaining green goo and much to his relief found none.

"Fire Nation Relaxed Fit Red." Azula recited from memory. "The relaxed fit for the androgynous."

"I had a slime filled squid explode on me." Karo checked his face for blemishes and began to dress in a new set of clean clothes. Karo felt much better about life in a neat as a pin Fire Nation suit and he could feel his mind relaxing as he dressed and fussed over his hair. Soon he had a neat head of hair and a nice gold Fire Nation decoration in his hair. Karo waited for a moment for Azula to say something cutting.

"It helped ease the boredom." Azula lay back on the bottom bunk with her hands laced around the back of her head. "I ran out of good books to read and I have run out of bad books to read and so I have begun reading the stash of Archie Comics I lifted from one of the sailors lockers."

"Has Archie managed to graduate?" Karo sat on the edge of the bottom bunk and Mitsumi jumped into his lap.

"He murdered Betty and Veronica and buried them in a mass grave in his backyard." Azula said sarcastically. "I actually reread your copy of _The Origin of Species_ before I got to the Archie comics."

"The graphic novelized version or the original?" Karo stroked Mitsumi's fur.

"The original – introductions and all." Azula sighed.

Karo heard a loud series of thumps and hoped it would not be a friend or family member of the enraged green goo squid. Hakoda opened the hatch and stuck his head into the hatchway.

"Sorry to disturb you but have you seen the crew's collection of Archie comics?" Hakoda asked pleasantly.

Azula had spent three weeks as the guest of Hakoda of the Water Tribe and she had killed a giant squid. Azula had not murdered Karo only because she had some manner of use for him despite the fact he complained endlessly during the last week of the voyage about the weather, the rancid Fire Flakes and the asbestosis he believed they had induced. Mitsumi had done nothing to get on her nerves but spending three weeks in a small wooden cell with a chirpy primate sleeping at her feet or on occasion next to her face did bother her.

"I feel seasick in reverse." Karo stood on the solid block of well sculpted ice that served as the large dock for incoming ships. He watched his breath in the cold air and looked up at the gray somber sky and shivered. "I have become used to having the ground move constantly under my feet now that it doesn't I feel dizzy."

"The Coriolis force is less here because we are so far North." Azula pushed Karo forward toward the row of buildings that lined the harbor and promised shelter.

"What could that possibly mean?" Karo walked beside Azula. "As far as my uneasy stomach is concerned."

"Probably nothing." Azula rubbed her hands for warmth. "I have spent three weeks with a crew of Water Tribe sailors and my mother. I have not had a chance to use my favorite ten gold piece science words."

"Or play with massive pendulums?" Karo nearly would have collided with a man rolling a barrel down the docks if Azula had not pulled him out of the way. "I took the same first year physics course you did."

"I hate this place." Azula looked around and showed contempt for the Water Tribe civilization.

"Lets not insult the locals." Karo asked.

"Lets find a newspaper." Azula pointed up one of the white cold looking streets lined with the signs of a healthy variety of stores. The Northern Water Tribe had learned a good deal from the outside world about making their downtown core look like a mass of ill planned signs and posters inducing people to purchase goods and services.

Azula and Karo wandered slowly up the street, up a gentle natural incline and peered in the windows of various stores.

"I have seen a thing of great beauty." Karo pointed at the wooden mascot that stood outside of every Fat Boy fried food franchise in the Realm. Although the buildings in the Northern Water Tribe all were made of ice using water bending to shape them into habitable structures this building had the familiar steep roofed hut shape of all Fat Boy franchises and had the familiar Fat Boy fat boy mascot carved out of wood and painted in the gaudy white, red and blue corporate colors.

"I can smell the smell of deep fried Komodo chicken." Azula sniffed the air. "These people can advance after all. The most backwards people on Earth may one day have indoor plumbing."

"They can hear you." Karo motioned to a man in the long blue coat of a Water Tribe elder who had begun to take an interest in the two fire benders.

"I need deep friend anything." Azula patted Karo on the back. They walked into the familiar if somewhat ice bound interior of the restaurant hoping to find real food which could induce real arteriosclerosis. The dour looking elderly man in the traditional Water Tribe outfit followed Azula and Karo into the restaurant.

"Teenage minimum wage slaves, corn oil and condiments!" Azula breathed in deeply and looked around the restaurant.

"Can I have an order of your Fat Boy fried potato wedgies, Fat Boy cola, Extra Large and two pieces of Komodo chicken please?" Karo approached the counter and began speaking before he had the attention of the teenage girl manning the cash. "And hurry please! I have eaten the parts of dolphin even starving raccoons would refuse!"

"May I have an order of potato wedgies and Fat Boy bean curd puffs with dipping sauce and a tea?" Azula spoke somewhat calmer as the girl at the cash took their orders, wrote them down and gave them both odd looks.

"Do you have flush toilets? Wet naps? Napkins?" Karo leaned over and asked the cashier. He spoke with a desperate eagerness.

"Yes to all three." The girl answered back nervously as if wondering if the Fire Nation madman drooling front of her would soon try to steal the cash box. The lemur on Azula's shoulder didn't help ease tensions.

"Excuse me." The dour old man with the thin mustache spoke up unemotionally.

"Hold on." Karo paid for his order and looked around for the sign that pointed to the washrooms. "I have a _mighty need_ to use the facilities."

"I must -" Karo ran off before the elderly man could complete his sentence.

"He is the son of Admiral Zhao." The elderly man turned to Azula as she paid for her order.

"He is Zhao-ish." Azula said evasively. "Does he look like the son of a great and feared navy admiral?"

"You should take care." The man cautioned. "Some people do not remember Admiral Zhao fondly."

"Wooden toilet seats, flushing and everything! Paper towels and real soap!" Karo came back a moment later to find the old man and Azula glaring at each other. "Karo Zhao – ow."

Azula kicked Karo's shin.

"Admiral Zhao's boy." The old man muttered. "I must talk with you."

"At long last fried food." Karo said as he and Azula sat down at a solid wooden table painted in red with blue wooden bench seats and await their repast. The old man followed them and glared at both of them as he sat down on next to Azula.

"Tasteless modern crap." The old and uninvited man said quietly as the cashier brought the food to the table. "At least during the War the outside world largely left us alone behind our defenses and our cultural traditions remained unchanged."

"Why bother us?" Azula tried to remain patient at the rantings of another Luddite Water Tribe elder concerned that he had lost something valued – like scurvy. "The Fat Boy Corporation has laid pelts of all kinds on the floor as a tribute to Water Tribe culture. They may even offer up Water Tribe cuisine for those of us who do not choke to death on it."

"What about the Ho Joh's hotel? They moved in to host tourists who wish to visit our lands." The old man rasped as Karo enjoyed his Komodo chicken and dropped it in a moment of surprise.

"You have a Ho Joh's – with Pez? With bathrooms and lamps and a telephone where I can call on room service to serve me up a continental breakfast?" Karo leaned forward and asked excitedly.

"Who _are _you?" Azula had the presence of mind to ask.

"I am elder of Kyoshi Island and Suki's father." The old man began as Karo half listened as he ate potato wedgies and savored their rich and greasy flavor. "One of the crew on the ship you arrived told me two important Fire Nation nobles had traveled with them."

"Us?" Azula began as she kicked Karo into diplomatic mode.

"Indeed." The old man answered back as Karo cringed.

"Toilets." Karo began to advise. "More people – ow!"

"I am Suki's father and I came to seek revenge on Princess Azula." The elderly man announced.

"Why?" Karo asked hastily as he patted his bruised shin.

"She spoiled my daughter's honor." The elderly man announced as at last Mitsumi chattered.

"Oh." Azula and Karo said together.

"But yet you approve of Sokka and Karo sharing things?" Azula answered bluntly.

"I will seek revenge on him next." The man answered without a hint of humor.

"Thank you." Karo ate a potato wedgie.

"Hello!" Sokka grabbed Karo from behind making him drop his food.

"We – uh." Karo stumbled for words. "Suki's father wants to hurt me."

"He wants to kill Azula." Sokka corrected.

"Oh." Karo and Azula answered.

"Does that bother you?" Sokka kissed Karo on the forehead.

"I would miss all of the misery laden bitching." Karo answered back.

"I have yet to sleep with a real man." Azula answered back calmly. "If Karo died I would have to find one to sleep with."

"Dad?" Suki said from behind a wastepaper bin.

"You don't want her dead?" The man answered back.

"No." Suki answered back. "Karo would miss her."

Katara met Azula and Karo arm in arm as they returned to Hakoda's ship. They had wanted to spend a night in the local Ho Joh's hotel collecting Pez and stealing soap and towels but Hakoda wished to take advantage of the favorable winds and leave at six in the evening.

"Hello." Katara greeted Karo and Azula as they walked up to the dock.

"We leave in fifteen minutes." Katara reminded both of them. "Sokka and Suki have taken a cabin and so your mother has to move into your top bunk."

"I gave up Pez for this." Karo complained.

"And can you explain..." Azula looked at Katara with her amber eyes glaring."Suki's dad wanted to kill me."

"He has a strange sense of humor." Katara explained quietly. "He likes to test the character of people by threatening them. He nearly had Sokka fed to a giant eel when he met him. He will also voyage with us."

"I should explain we have limited space." Katara began walking up the gangplank. "Lady Ursa will take the top bunk in your cabin."

"Whoa!" Karo had the top bunk and did not relish sleeping on the cold floor or sharing the bunk with Azula since she usually snored and also crushed his ribs and collapsed his lungs as she leeched off his body heat. "I use that bunk."

"Azula will share her bunk with you and Mitsumi." Katara put her arm around Karo's shoulder.

"We have to share the cabin with my mom?" Azula gasped in panic. "This could cause issues in the delicate dance of compromises and lies that make our relationship work."

"Have fun." Katara stood at the top of the gangway and waved them onto the ship. "We have limited room with all the extra people traveling to the Earth Kingdom."

"Would it help if I killed myself now?" Karo looked at Katara.

"Three more weeks at sea with two women?" Karo pleaded. "Guys need personal space."

"You will live." Katara pushed him along the dock.

"I didn't have a chance to buy any books." Karo interrupted. "We have a Northern Water Tribe telephone directory to read and a deck of cards with three aces. I wrote _Ace of Spades _on one of the jokers so I technically have marked the cards."

"_They_ have a telephone directory?" Azula asked half sarcastically. "I thought the Water Tribe long distance communication system involved shouting out the window."

The evening passed with the crew casting off and with Karo playing_ I spy_ with Mitsumi and Azula.

Lady Ursa returned after Azula had gone to sleep. Azula snored as demonstrated by the fact the floorboards rattled. Lady Ursa climbed out of her bunk in the middle of the night to silence the loud snoring. She found Azula emitting a wall of sound straight into Karo's ear and wondered how karo could have any hearing. Snoring did not do the noise justice. Lady Ursa might have witnessed similar noise levels from rocket engines if she had ever seen a rocket launch. Nuclear blasts might have been louder but she had witnessed none so had no frame of reference.

"Karo?" Lady Ursa tapped his shoulder.

"Uh-huh?" Karo felt caught in Azula's crushing grip.

"The Fire Nation princess's snoring is keeping me awake." Lady Ursa could see almost nothing in the dimly lit bowels of the ship.

"Uh-huh?" Karo remained half asleep.

"Can you do something to keep her quiet?" Ursa asked loudly.

"No." Karo yawned. "You learn to filter it out or you go insane."

"Oh." Ursa stood back.

"Wish I could help." Karo said quietly as the snoring damped down a notch. Azula snorted and grabbed Karo's stomach.

"Can you get your lemur off my bunk." Ursa made her second demand.

"He won't hurt you." Karo answered back.

"I tried to kick him out but he made a rude gesture." Ursa continued.

"Karo?" Azula spoke.

"Your snoring woke me up." She told Azula bluntly. "I couldn't sleep."

"I don't snore." Azula climbed out of bed. "Mitsumi does."

"You snore." Lady Ursa said accusingly and followed Azula.

"You can't win this." Karo told Ursa politely.

"I need to use the bucket." Azula slid the curtain closed. "Dim Sung that bench is cold."

"I feel tired." Ursa complained as she woke up.

"Welcome aboard." Azula muttered from the bunk.

"Your lemur kept trying to sleep on my head." Ursa yawned.

"Karo never complained of my snoring." Azula said angrily.

"I incorporate it into my dreams." Karo shrugged. "I have dreamed of large rockets, infantry trench warfare and watching demolition crews blow up buildings."

"I can't be that loud." Azula snorted with contempt. "I am royalty."

"I find it useful. I can find my bunk in the dark." Karo replied as Ursa moved in the bunk above them. She had suffered a fate almost as bad as death – she shared the cabin with two Fire Nation dorks. She had heard the debate on which insect would take over the Earth after humans went extinct as well as a rather intricate debate on whether voyaging to Mars with a half dozen people would make astronauts go insane. Ursa had learned at least fifty of the more obscure chemical elements by listening in on a game of name the elements and number the protons and neutrons. She had learned about Zirconium and had discovered the natural wonder known as Boron. Lady Ursa had discovered what Katara long knew about Karo and Azula – they knew lots of rather obscure and useless science oriented trivia.

"We hit a killer whale last night." Sokka climbed into the cabin with the intent to greet everyone and brag about Water Tribe survival skills which to Azula simply involved sailing over things. Sokka had two fishing rods in his hand.

"Killer whale for dinner?" Karo's stomach protested the act of eating marine mammals.

"We will have a feast!" Sokka looked to Karo. "I should teach you to fish."

"I know how to fish." Karo sat at the edge of the bed while Azula lay back. "You pull the pin from the grenade and toss it overboard. I used to fish in the canals in Ba Sing Se."

"What did you fish for?" Sokka sat down next to Karo.

"I fished for the sheer anthropology of it." Karo answered. "See what kind of crap people dropped into the canals. I once caught a couch and half a deck chair. Never caught the elusive dead body tied to a concrete block."

"It's a bit cold and cloudy but the sea is calm." Sokka said cheerfully. "The Fire Nation passengers should get out of bed and get some exercise."

A half hour later Sokka's face appeared in the hatch that lead to the cabin below decks. Azula and Karo had dressed and they fussed about with their hair trying to look like sophisticated and cultured Fire Nation nobility. Karo looked at the dull gray sky as he prepared himself for the day by keeping down a cup of Azula's seasickness curing tea.

"I have a question for Azula." Sokka sounded very serious.

"I have no idea how to gut fish." Azula looked up at Sokka with a scornful look on her face.

"Do you have anything to confess – Princess of the Fire Nation?" Sokka stepped back as Azula came up out of the cabin followed by Karo. The crew had gathered on deck along with the passengers and looked up at some kind of Fire Nation rig that towered out of the water dominating the ocean like a castle. "This thing sits in the middle of Northern Water Tribe territory."

"An offshore rig?" Karo looked at the nest of piping and tall steel rigging that made up the huge structure. "Adds a little color to the place doesn't it."

"What has this to do with me?" Azula looked at the tall rig, the cranes and the towers that had that showed the prowess of the Fire Nation at the acme of its power. It stood on four massive steel pillars that widened into a tapered cone as they neared the churning seas. The rig had a coat of fresh looking charcoal paint with a bright red Fire Nation logo and looked clean and yet very dead – nothing moved except for crane cables that rattled in the cold wind. "Congratulations – you have a war relic."

"Come on - get in. Leave the lemur behind." Sokka pointed to a small boat sitting in the water. "My father wants to know more about this thing."

Sokka began to row toward the rig with Katara, Suki, Karo and Azula. Katara feared anything metal that took up three football pitches and resented the Fire Nation for placing it there. Azula had no idea that the facility ever existed but given the hunger the Fire Nation had for new technology and power it hardly came as a surprise. Suki remained quiet and helped Sokka row. Karo wondered if a few thousandths of a centimeter of some dead animal wrapped around a boat shaped frame could keep out the freezing Northern ocean.

"What does this thing do?" Suki made a foul face as they neared the huge charcoal gray rig.

"You all keep looking at me." Azula pointed at the slick as she sat back in the boat. "I have no idea."

The rowboat gently banged against one of the huge pillars that held the rig afloat. Katara grabbed a chain and pulled the boat closer to a small platform with stairs leading in a spiral around the massive pillar and up to the higher levels of the rig.

"A dead seal struggled up the steps." Azula kicked the burned the bloated carcass of a seal that had clearly passed its prime. The brown burned covered carcass made a bloated thump as she stepped on it.

"What could that poor animal be doing here?" Suki had some edge to her voice as she saw the seal It had likely suffered great pain as it had struggled to flee onto the steps and finally passed on.

"Not a hell of a lot." Azula answered back.

"He looks burned." Sokka explained the painfully obvious.

"Why look at me?" Karo felt a pang of guilt as he walked past the bloated carcass. "Maybe you can still eat it."

"Not likely." Katara growled.

"It's pre jerkied." Azula announced blandly.

"Our boat just sank." Suki pointed down the huge steel column that served to keep the rig afloat and protect it from icebergs at the ribs that once formed the boat. It slid into the water as if dragged under by a vortex and finally vanished.

"Delightful." Katara had taken the lead and she opened a metal door on a landing at the top of the stairs. The heavy black steel door opened with a loud clang and many years of dry, cold dust settled down on the group as they entered a long hallway with pipelines. Solid looking steel doors led off to rooms and the whole scene reminded Karo of a Fire Nation naval ship but on a vaster scale. The lights remained on which meant the rig had power.

"Roll call!" Azula announced. "Katara? Sokka? Suki? Karo? Why don't we split into teams and search the rig?"

"You have a dentist appointment or something urgent?" Karo said nervously. "Why do we need to split up?"

"We can search this thing faster and then head home." Azula glowered at Karo. "Nothing can hurt any of us."

"Our boat sank." Karo found the presence of mind to point this fact out. "I am an in freak out mode."

"Calm down!" Azula told Karo.

"I will go with Katara and Karo." Azula said calmly. "Can you two search the other end of the rig."

The team split up and Karo and Katara followed Azula around the maze of passages on that level of the rig but found nothing but a deck of diesel engines that ran generators and charged huge banks of lead acid batteries – several of them had – disturbingly – remained running at full pelt. They discovered various supply cabinets full of hazardous material suits and bright red steel hard hats. Everything looked relatively new and somehow gave everyone the feeling the crew of the rig had only left a day or so ago.

"I found the main Control Room." Sokka's voice rang through the public address system.

"Touch nothing." Azula yelled back hoping Sokka would hear him. "Where can we find you."

"At the top floor facing Hakoda's ship." Sokka answered back.

_Whir! Clang! Chunk! Chunk!_

"I said touch nothing!" Azula yelled as she grabbed Karo.

"Suki did it." Sokka protested over the tinny sounding public address system.

"The Northern Water Tribe doesn't need clean fishing grounds does it?" Azula ran down the hall toward a sign that pointed to a set of heavy metal stairs. "Come enjoy the Water Tribe homeland and the nice derelict Fire Nation War monuments!"

"I cracked open a window because it smelled foul." Suki came on the intercom as Azula shoved Karo and motioned Katara through the thick door. "Then I heard all these odd noises."

"A red light came on above a lever marked Launch_ Sequence_." Sokka spoke in a clipped, stuttering diction that hinted at urgency.

"Don't touch anything!" Katara yelled at her brother as she rushed after Azula. She feared Sokka with his curious nature would do something stupid with a piece of advanced engineering they knew nothing about.

"Another red light lit up." Suki came onto the public address system with her voice sounding rushed and frightened – out of character for a Kyoshi Warrior. She had seen a rather ominous message displayed on a flip chart type display like that used in digital clock radios. "It says Launch Sequence Initiated – Countdown at 6:00.00.00."

"Turn it off!" Azula yelled as she reached the top level at full sprint. "Press the - "

_Groan! Clank!_

The whole rig seemed to come to life as if awakening like a giant organism. Azula and Katara ran into the room marked Control Room to see Sokka staring at a huge group of now flashing and moving dials. Everything in the Control Room demanded attention at once but no one could figure out what they meant let alone what type of action to take. The control room became a disco type room of brass gages, flashing lights, back lit messages and things that made pings and beeps.

"Someone still uses this." Sokka watched the moving lights.

"A rig in the middle of nowhere?" Azula walked slowly over the banks of brass gages and lights which had lit up in red, yellow or green. Azula found a large book with charts and logs that dated back to the date of the construction of the rig. She found out the rig had a sinister purpose not at all out of character for the Fire Nation. Azula had heard of an Earth Kingdom rocket scientist named Gou Dong who had worked out the ideas behind rockets. The Earth Kingdom had no interest in the theoretical rantings of a Ba Sing Se professor. The Fire Nation read and tried to implement everything Gou Dong proposed. The Fire Nation didn't want a method to send weather satellites into orbit but to reign death on unreachable targets. They had built this rig to strike the Northern Water Tribe with rockets carrying bombs from a convenient distance. The Fire Nation never made the system work properly since they lacked crucial materials and guidance technologies. They closed the facility down after the defeat at the Siege of the North and stripped the facility of anything useful.

"A platform for launching rockets?" Sokka placed a large group of drawings. "The last people to stay here scuttled everything but failed to sink the rig before the Northern Water Tribe found it."

"Why did they leave it standing?" Katara asked.

"I don't know." Sokka turned to Azula.

How would I know!" Azula looked at Sokka. Azula knew about the kinds of rockets that consisted of scaled up fire works that could scare the enemy but not of a refined technology for hitting cities. She found herself bothered by this mystery herself since it made sense to send the rig to the bottom.

"Poison is my guess." Azula answered quietly. "If the Fire Nation used some kind of liquid rocket fuel then sinking this platform would destroy vast areas of the ocean they depend on."

"How do you know this?" Katara and Sokka asked together.

"Fireworks use solid fuel which sinks but this kind of weapon probably used an explosive liquid fuel like something made from oil or coal." Azula explained as she grew uneasy under the gaze of the group. "We had learned by hard experience these fuels destroy ocean life. We killed off many miles of oceans by leaks in the pipes meant to deliver fuel."

"Admiral Zhao." Karo pointed to a poster that hung in a simple black frame over the far wall of the Control Room.

"At this point the Nickelodeon closes the scene to black and puts up that stupid animated commercial for popcorn and snacks." Azula walked over and brushed a fine layer of grimy oily dust off the glass of the picture.

"I thought you might wish to know what I accomplished since we last met." Admiral Zhao and two tough looking guards in Fire Nation armor appeared at the Control Room door to add intimidation value.

"Let's all go to the lobby..." Azula sang out.


End file.
